Once again, the Supreme Court has demonstrated how generous it can be when it comes to dispensing taxpayer money like an ATM in favor of people deemed “more equal” than the rest of us. “Special people” like former Sandiganbayan justice Gregory Ong and the late chief justice Renato Corona have been allowed to enjoy the whole package of retirement benefits despite having been both found guilty of corruption during their “public service” time in the bench (“SC shows ‘mercy’ for ex-justice who fixed Napoles case,” 7/7/21; “SC vindicates Corona, grants full retirement benefits,” 2/9/21).
If the Supreme Court has no better use of surplus cash in the tens of millions being showered on those former magistrates, it could have thought of the millions of Filipinos wallowing in abject poverty, misery, and sickness amid this raging pandemic, now without much help from a supposedly bankrupt government.
Not to be insensitive to the “miseries” of the Ong and Corona families, but what greater acts of corruption did the millions of Filipinos do to be treated to the spectacle of being denied even just a sprinkling of similar financial aid from the “highest court of law and justice”?
CHIN CHIN KATIGBAK
cckatigbak@yahoo.com.ph